REMEMBER the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH.
Peggy Noonan (b. 1950), U.S. author, presidential speechwriter
What I Saw at the Revolution, ch. 4 (1990)
ed·it (èd'ît) verb, transitive
1.a. To prepare (written material) for publication or presentation, as by correcting, revising, or refining. b. To modify or adapt to make suitable or acceptable: <~ her remarks for presentation to a different audience>. 2. To eliminate; delete: <~ out unnecessary words>.
What Exactly Is It That I Do, Anyway?
Romanian-born U.S. writer Elie Wiesel once said, "There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them."*
Editing is that process of condensing the material into its most succinct form. Editors have been likened to threshing machines--separating the wheat from the chaff. We cut the fat and pare the prose down to the bare essentials. We've also been compared to midwives, coaching the birth of a literary work. Alan D. Williams refers to this role as that of the "magic worker-meddler":
However he or she is regarded, an editor is, or should be, doing something that almost no friend, relative, or even spouse is qualified or willing to do, namely to read every line with care, to comment in detail with absolute candor, and to suggest changes where they seem desirable or even essential. In doing this the editor is acting as the first truly disinterested reader, giving the author not only constructive help but also, one hopes, the first inkling of how reviewers, readers, and the marketplace...will react, so that the author can revise accordingly.**
A copyeditor takes it one step further. Once the manuscript is refined and condensed in terms of content, the copyeditor wields the blue pencil (or the mouse) to draw the manuscript into conformity with publishing style. This includes the obvious mechanics, such as spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation; but it also involves the more obscure issues, such as which numbers get spelled out, where the hyphen goes in Chinese food lover, and whether a particular quotation is followed by three or four ellipsis points. It also includes the tedious details, such as whether verandah was spelled with an h way back in chapter 1 the way it is in chapter 6. A copious vocabulary is essential to catch the ubiquitous misused words and phrases.
The Chicago Manual of Style--the bible of copyeditors--calls copyediting "the editor's most important and most time-consuming task":
It requires close attention to every detail in a manuscript, a thorough knowledge of what to look for and of the style to be followed, and the ability to make quick, logical, and defensible decisions.***
Anyone who has seen a copyedited manuscript knows that editors have a written language of their own, decipherable only by insiders such as proofreaders and old-school typesetters and printers. Until they study and are privy to the enigmatic symbology of editing, authors no doubt tear out their hair when trying to decode some hieroglyphic marring a seemingly well-written phrase. But the effort is a collaborative one, with author and editor showing mutual respect for the other's role in the publishing process.
To pave the way for the many people involved in the conversion of author's manuscript into typeset pages, the copyeditor also compiles and produces the documentation comprising all the style issues affecting the title. The style sheet summarizes the Chicago rules that apply to the text, as well as those devised by the editor. It includes treatment of numbers, abbreviations, and capitalization, and a list of hyphenated compounds, recurring names and places, and words with difficult or unconventional spellings. In addition to being an invaluable editorial memory aid, a comprehensive style sheet serves as the best defense against any cans of worms being opened at the proofreading stage.
My copyediting milieu ranges from technology, history, and biography; to fiction, spirituality, and travel; to home improvement, gardening, and cookbooks; to investing, securities trading, and the stock market; to advertising copy, Web sites, and CD-ROMs. I recently did an anthology of Beat poetry, followed by an encyclopedic chronology of the WWII air war in the Pacific, followed by college textbooks on filmmaking, multimedia, and video production. Although familiarity with the subject matter is certainly a plus, particularly when working with a careless author, it is not a prerequisite. More important is a solid grounding in the English language--in knowing cold its fundamental mechanics, in being sensitive to its nuances and evolution, and in understanding the lengthy process of bringing it to the printed page.
Google Book Search links to acknowledgments from grateful authors.
Feedback via e-mail to: vonrad@charter.net
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* |
Elie Wiesel (b. 1928), interview in Writers at Work, 8th series (George Plimpton, ed.) 1988. |
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** |
Alan D. Williams, "What Is an Editor?" in Editors on Editing, 3d ed. (Gerald Gross, ed.) New York: Grove Press, 1993. |
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*** |
The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993: 63-64. |
This page last updated on 7 December 2005.
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